Facebook data show we’re entering season of breakups

The months of November and December will from now on be known primarily as the breakup season — at least, that’s what data from Facebook are showing us. The social networking site shows us that breakups — signified by users changing their relationship statuses to single — start to grow in November, then reach a spike just before Christmas.

A similar spike is visible just before spring break.

See it for yourself. This graph was compiled by David McCandless, who scanned more than 10 000 status-updates to find out when people breakup most often.

Graph by David McCandless

Besides huge spikes before the holidays and spring break, McCandless said in a recent TED talk that most breakups happen on Mondays and that more people start summer being single.

If you like what you see from McCandless, you might check out some of his other data visualizations. Here, he shows you what Twitter would look like if it was only 100 people. (Only five would have more than 100 followers.)